News
Different routes | Mike | HMC | AardmanSince we have re-started development on our
babyproject it has become apparant that we are now getting to the narrow end of our steep-learning curve - perhaps ourbabyproject isbecoming a teenagermaturing, the question we continue to ask ourselves is: Where do we go from here ?To this end we have looked into which platform we will develop on; how we are going to implement our 'magic
mirrorwindow' and how we are going to construct our beta interactive prototype.Processing is a rapid-prototyping java api and ide, which provides easy access to 3D graphics and basic visual programming whilst providing advanced functionality through the standard java packages. At the moment our development experiments favour this platform for it's extra versatility in a short time-span.
However, even with the advantages provided by Processing the implementation of our prototype poses a number of challenges to our success: Tracking the movement of a user's head (without peripherals) requires a lot of horsepower; rendering a scene in 3D requires some more horsepower and pre-rendering the scene we want to display requires a lot of donkey-work. So in short we need two or more Horses and a Donkey and our computers can only *do* Gigahertz…
Gareth Williams - Interactive Developer
Media from the Half-Way Presentation | Dan | HMC | AardmanWe're very nearly there on deciding the final application of our half way experiments. We're currently edging (cautiously) towards producing two final products, although one will be very simple. The only thing holding us back from announcing our plans is signing off the use of particular Aardman properties.
While you wait, why not check out some of the footage from the presentation of the experiments.
Check out the Flickr pics (they're also available amongst the others in the Media Sandbox Pool.
Our cunning plan | Mike | HMC | AardmanSo the cunning plan is to use iris tracking to overlay images on a person's reflection in a mirror. To do this, we'll be tracking the eyes to estimate a person's location in 3D space, then place our own 3D models over their reflection using the two-way mirror technique posted below. We've worked out that we might even be able to create a false perspective image - to make it seem as if you're looking through a window into someone's living room.
To create these virtual reflections, we've been using Papervision:
The dots being dragged around are a representation of what the tracking code should give us
By manipulating a box, you could be looking into Wallace & Gromit's living room
Mirror Mirror in my Frame | Mike | HMC | AardmanThe two-way mirror arrived in our office yesterday. I've been busy with my box of tools and a load of timber, and have just finished the setup for the Magic Mirror screen. Here's a quick look at how it went:
I started with a nice wooden frame for the acrylic mirror. In even lighting the mirror is semi-transparent.
I was hoping that the foil coating on the acrylic would make a good projection surface, but instead it just reflected the projection. I had to find something more advanced…
Here's a test with a sheet of the most space-age material I could find - Tracing Paper!
Next, I fitted my steroidal webcam rig to the top of the frame. Eventually, this will be hidden behind the two-way mirror.
Behind the scenes, I'm using a great big 4000 lumen projector to give a crisp image on the mirror
I'm really pleased with the final result. Black and dark colours become reflective, while lighter colours shine brightly through the mirror.The next step is to get the tracking working at this range. So far our tests have been with close up images - the hard part is getting accurate tracking on a 'passer by'.
Blob Tracking in Flash | Mike | HMC | AardmanHere's a demo of our blob tracking engine. This has been written exclusively in Flash with Actionscript 3.
